GM events contents , the miss of mordern MMO RPG .

iixviiiix · September 2017

GM events is one of few special things that only MMO games (RPG) have . Because only true MMO allow massive number of players gather at one , something that puny "MMO" with small room of 5 or 20 can't do .

Sadly , this kind of contents become rare nowadays . It make me wonder why less MMO give tools for GM to create contents instead of wait for the update that come from developers

Ridelynn · September 2017

Because fewer games have live management staff that are active in the game. There is also the potential for abuse if you hand a person over the capability to do deep reserved in-game functions. Now you see these scripted as limited time seasonal quests or something... not nearly as spontaneous.

I do agree that these were often fun events.

TheScavenger · September 2017

I'm glad they are gone. Trying to get better skills, levels or items and then having a stupid event appear and ruin the gameplay so I couldn't make any progression at all. being forced to log out and stay off for hours until I could make actual progression.

Things like that, and spamming chat 24/7 instead of using an auction house...very glad those things are gone.

I'm okay with GW2 events though, they are built right in the game and you expect events to happen everywhere. They don't however ruin gameplay, stop progression or slow you down like old MMO events used to be. In fact, GW2 events you make lots of character progression and can get amazing items and money out of it.

berenim · September 2017

I fondly remember partys in Anarchy Online. Meeting at the beach or in clubs, while someone made a life stream for music. No XP, no special loot, just social interaction.

Most games just spare out the whole social part in total nowadays. You are lucky if you see a pub sign in a city, not to talk about an actual building with no other function but RPG and/or social interaction. You could actually hold a glass in AO, or bottles... Makes me feel nostalgic.

TheScavenger · September 2017

The worst event I've been a part of in newer MMOs was the WOTLK pre-launch event. That was by far in the top 10 worst events I ever had to experience. Griefing galore, not able to level, not able to do anything but be killed by stupid ghouls or whatever it was. It made me quit WoW and I never went back till WoD (which I loved WoD) and Legion.

Never do an event like WOTLK pre-launch, it ruined millions of players experience of the game because they couldn't progress or do anything but die.

anemo · September 2017

People care far too much about "fair" for GM events to make sense.

Anything unique given to the participants will cause a brutal outrage in the forums, even if that unique thing is a item that weakens your characters stats. Eventually just from players being near the devs you'll end up with your RPers getting hints (usually accidentally about future changes or patch notes), which will cause even more outrage and uproar for the advantages those players have. Maybe you'll have shear anger because one of your RPers suggests a nerf/buff that the game actually needs, but since it came from "Your Chosen Promised Ones" it'll be worth the outrage (remember you're interacting with your community selectively, and when things get casual other things will get mentioned not related to the event).

Panther2103 · September 2017

The only games I've ever noticed that actually hold GM events are the Pay to Win Korean MMOs that don't have many players left. I think it's trying to get the whales to come back for at least a little bit and suck them back into paying. Not really sure. I think L2 had one or two GM events, but usually you could use an NPC to get the items and not a GM.

I think more games just need events in general, not GM events. We always get the same events in every game, they are all holiday related or some crossover with another series or game. I want some new actual events, with new ideas, but that requires time and resources so I doubt it will happen any time soon.

Mendel · September 2017

GM events are ultimately unsatisfactory in MMORPGs. The reason: human interaction doesn't scale. The GMs can't handle each individual that happens to show up at an 'event'. Companies can't afford to hire enough GMs to handle volumes of people. There aren't even good tools to 'pre-record' dialog and event descriptions to communicate to the hoard.

A good face-to-face GM might be able to deal with 10 players. But 500 people crammed into Greater Faydark to try to run a GM-led quest to help Firionia Vie in a story quest was unworkable because the 2 GM characters couldn't keep the crowd in control. Not to mention, the presence of 500 people in one small area of the zone basically caused so much lag that the zone crashed. That was the days of dial-up connections, but I still wouldn't want to try that today.

Most of the EQ1 attempts to do GM events appeared to turn into events for a single group, with a hundred followers. They weren't able to scale the events to the participants.

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I think this is one of the failures of the MMORPG genre -- the lack of world-wide events. There has never been any initiative to develop a robust 'GM AI' that could handle groups of people, and few, if any, server-side tools to facilitate running an event. Even a simple 'event roll' to indicate who is participating in an event doesn't appear to be in existence.

Flyte27 · September 2017

Personally I liked the choas sometimes. Having evrything orderly and fair just makes for a boring experience IMO. Then again modern MMOs really aren't for me. They are to safe and controlelled like most things in life these days.

Shinami · September 2017

GM events tend to be horrible.
However its their job to come up with something players enjoy.
Do not blame players are mostly customers, not Shareholders.

The worse GM-EVENT I ever read was in Revelation Online
It was "Write an Essay about the Clan Wars in the form of a News Story" which of course was used for Public Relations...

It was literally "Please, do our homework for us. You won't be paid and the items we will give you will expire after 30 days."

That was enough
Along with their accidental exposure to their own deception and smoke screens
To Uninstall that game and its launcher, and walk away from it.

GM Events are a RISK
A BAD ONE = PEOPLE LEAVE
A GOOD ONE = PEOPLE SPREAD THE LOVE.

A Decent One = Keeps players happy.
No Events = Why am I playing this game again? Do they even care about us?

ChicagoCub · September 2017

skadad said:

Loved the GM events in eq1, hide and seek etc. Also a big fan of the EC-tunnel auctioning that builds community rather then the auctionhause-systems of today!

EQ1 was a game for real players policed by real players. It would never survive in its original form today. Camping, farming, looting, nearly everything was open to everyone yet the vast majority of people respected each players right to do them. The first person or group to camp and farm at a location got to do it without interference. The first person to engage a mob got to fight the mob without interference unless requested. The person who killed a mob or won a roll got to loot the mob. There were no game mechanics to prevent camp jumping, mob stealing, or ninja looting, just the players. If you did any of these things you were blackballed from guilds, raids, and dungeon groups. There were no game mechanics to prevent this, just the players. This provided one of the strongest communities ever to exist in an MMO. Once you reached max level you learned who everyone was on your server, you knew who was helpful, who the jerks were, the good guilds, the bad guilds, you had a reputation and just like IRL and you had to live with your decisions. Maxxing was no small feat so rerolling was not a casual decision. There were very few name changes, you had to petition for one and have a very good reason, server transfers were even more rare.

Flyte27 · September 2017

ChicagoCub said:

skadad said:

Loved the GM events in eq1, hide and seek etc. Also a big fan of the EC-tunnel auctioning that builds community rather then the auctionhause-systems of today!

EQ1 was a game for real players policed by real players. It would never survive in its original form today. Camping, farming, looting, nearly everything was open to everyone yet the vast majority of people respected each players right to do them. The first person or group to camp and farm at a location got to do it without interference. The first person to engage a mob got to fight the mob without interference unless requested. The person who killed a mob or won a roll got to loot the mob. There were no game mechanics to prevent camp jumping, mob stealing, or ninja looting, just the players. If you did any of these things you were blackballed from guilds, raids, and dungeon groups. There were no game mechanics to prevent this, just the players. This provided one of the strongest communities ever to exist in an MMO. Once you reached max level you learned who everyone was on your server, you knew who was helpful, who the jerks were, the good guilds, the bad guilds, you had a reputation and just like IRL and you had to live with your decisions. Maxxing was no small feat so rerolling was not a casual decision. There were very few name changes, you had to petition for one and have a very good reason, server transfers were even more rare.

That is a matter of perspective. In UO and EQ I didn't know the names of many players. I soloed most of the time and didn't reach max level until PoP came out. It's true that most people were nice, but things could get pretty chaotic with little accountability. Honestly that is the way I like it though. There is enough responcibilities in real life. In a virtual world it's fun to misbehave and act in a more natural way IMO. That is what I enjoyed about video games in general. People weren't restricted by the normal rules of society that made everything in life dull.

Scot · September 2017

Just another good idea from old MMOs that never made it to the current day. Other posters have gone over the reasons why, but remember the key design principle of Massive Multiplayer Online games today, make them like they are solo games. Meet ups, anything like that is not going to get catered for.

Nebless · September 2017

I liked the one's from the early days of SWG. While the GM's would only 'set the scene' so to speak, they were the one's kicking things off. Be it either dropping Lord Vader down in Naboo City and unleashing the Chicken Walkers and Storm Troopers to start a large scale Pvp & PvE fight, to setting up a raid on one of the planets were one side was defending and the other attacking one of the cities like Bestine or Dearic.

In both thos cases, the GM's set up the frame work and invited everyone and they we took over making it what we would.

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GM events contents , the miss of mordern MMO RPG .

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GM events contents , the miss of mordern MMO RPG .

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